In a section from his memoir ‘Dreaming Japanese,’ shared by Rolling Stone, Marty Friedman recalled the atmosphere in Megadeth after he said he was leaving.
The guitarist talked about his final shows, including one at a sports bar promoted with cheap burritos. During the break before his last scheduled performance, he had a severe panic attack and thought he was having a heart attack.
“It felt like my heart might explode. I thought I might have food poisoning. Then, I was in too much pain to think. I fell off the couch and couldn’t move. My heart was racing like a coke fiend about to go into cardiac arrest, and the palpitations were so strong they hurt the muscles in my chest. F*cking hell, could this be a heart attack?” Friedman explained.
He added, “Someone rolled me to the ER. I was so freaked out, I thrashed and shook like I was having a grand mal seizure.” At the hospital, a doctor confirmed Friedman had a severe panic attack.
He called Megadeth’s tour manager, Steve Wood, who asked if he was going to miss the tour. “‘Dude, I can’t walk! I’m flat on my back in the ER shivering like a moron in the middle of the Arizona desert,” Marty replied to him. “I still don’t have a clue what’s happening. So, f*ck them all and f*ck the whole f*cking tour! It ain’t gonna happen.'”
Friedman agreed to perform but doubted if he could physically do it as he said, “I couldn’t even stand up straight. How the hell was I gonna play the guitar? I practiced walking with Chihiro, and by the day of the show, I could walk on my own at a turtle’s pace.”
“As soon as I started playing, however, I was back in full control, like nothing had ever happened. I performed with abundant aggression and pulled off my normal stage moves without pause. When I sidled up to David or Dave to rock out in tandem, they looked at me with complete bewilderment. To them, one minute I was stricken with anxiety and unable to walk, and the next I was tearing up the stage, business as usual,” the musician shared.
Friedman joined Megadeth in 1990 and played on five albums. After selling over 10 million albums worldwide, he left in 1999. He reunited with the band in 2023 in Tokyo and also this year’s Wacken Open Air. ‘Dreaming Japanese’ will be released on December 3 by Permuted Press.
